Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

I’m tired of being involved.
The other night train master came
and nearly took me.
I hang in healthily.
Two years and he ditched me.

He came looking flushed
apology on his lips.
“I’m in love.”
I realised what everything meant.
He had breakfast and looked amused.

Yes everything has a beginning a middle
and an end. But not modern stories
they seem to go on forever like me.
Self rules the world. His self importance
is tearing me apart.
I gaze out of the carriage petrified of the journey.

Will it stop now? Will my life be over
will the man come?

My father thinks mum
is poisoning him.
I think I have to go.
But mum doesn’t want to be alone with an old man.

I worked hard yet
I’m nothing.
My cats are fighting.
The kitten with the cat over
territory I wonder why not I?

He said, he said he loved me.
We must be courting for seventeen years now.
I know some and he knows that I’m being
taken for granted. Like some never make it.
And blondes are never taken for
granted especially if they wear their silicones well.

Jealousy will it be still.
I am a discarded tampon
stop tormenting me.
I’m always on the train and the journey
begins to jet lag me, then there is a break.
Something is wrong.
I climb the rails and it’s encouraged.
I want to speak but I’m tongue tied.

I imagine the trees and the shadows.
Years slip and I’m an infant and I’m swinging
in the orange groves of Cyprus and my
world is filled with fruits and candy and
I’m happy.

Everything is all right everything is fine
says my mum as I fall and graze my knee.
And I’m in my lover’s arms and he says
Everything will be all right.

Then the train hurtles into space
and I no longer have control.